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Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Why You Should Buy Chanbara Part 2: Class and Profile Inspirations

There
are only three character classes in Chanbara: Bushi (warrior),
Mahotsukai (magician) and Shinobi (spy). Each class has its own
advancement chart providing new levels at certain amounts of XP.
Bushi advance the fastest. This is a derivation from standard
D&D/OSR, where Fighters are the middle of the road advancement
class. I did it on purpose, to encourage more fighters. Chanbara
movies and TV (like most fantasies) focus on warriors for the most
part.

Sounds
boring, right? Well, if you haven't been keeping up with the
development (or my previous post), each class gets three or four
subclasses to choose from called Profiles. I'll give a taste of each
profile here, and a few notes about what inspired me to include each.
Also, for the record, early on I had each class idea as its own
distinct class, but there was a lot of overlap. So I decided to stick
to my Flying Swordsmen roots with only 3 general classes and profiles
for specialization. Also, unlike in Flying Swordsmen, I don't offer
an option to go without a profile, but I'm sure any halfway decent GM
could work something out for that.

Bushi

Bushi
(Warrior) is obviously like the Fighter. Instead of magic and lots of
cool special abilities, they’re good at combat. The name “bushi”
is actually a synonym for samurai. The Chinese characters mean
“martial gentleman” (more or less) while the character for
samurai means “servant.” It should be no surprise that the
aristocratic warriors of historical Japan preferred to call
themselves bushi, while others preferred to call them samurai. The
Bushi gets four profiles.

1.
Abarenbo (rowdy) are usually lower class tough guys. They might be
yakuza, they might be ashigaru footsoldier deserters, they might just
be the village bully. I give an option for them to be of the Buke
(aristocrat) status if they're rikishi (sumo wrestlers). They get
powers that make them tougher and stronger, for the most part.
They're kind of like the Bushi class of the original OA, but not
quite.

The
name Abarenbo I got from a TV show, Abarenbo Shogun (where the shogun
goes around Edo disguised as a low ranking samurai to help solve
problems and get in lots of fights). The profile itself is inspired
by Kikuchiyo (Mifune Toshiro's character) in Seven Samurai, the
character Rikimaru in the movie Red Shadow: Akakage (played by former
rikishi Mainoumi Shuhei; not to be confused with the Rikimaru of the
Tenchu video games), and the stock 'big strong (and probably dumb)'
member of the 5-man team shows.

2.
Kensei (weapon master) were a no brainer. They were in OA (misspelled
as kensai), and they're such a trope of the genre. They don't need to
master the sword, their main weapon could be anything, but the
inspiration usually comes from sword-masters like the historical
Miyamoto Musashi. Zatoichi the blind swordsman, and Kyuzo (Miyaguchi
Seiji's character) in Seven Samurai are also examples.

As
usual, kensei get really good with one specific weapon, and their
powers mostly don't work with other weapons.

3.
Samurai (warrior-aristocrats) are again a no brainer. This is
designed to be the 'default' option of the Bushi class, and can cover
both samurai serving a lord and ronin who are on their own. They get
a mix of offensive and defensive abilities as they progress.
Obviously some of the inspiration for their abilities comes from
previous games, like both OA supplements.

4.
Sohei (warrior-monk) have also been part of previous OA supplements,
and the big question for me during development was whether to have
them be more warrior with some magic, or magician with some fighting
skill. In the end, I went with mainly warrior/supplemental magician.
In fact, gaining spellcasting is an option for the class. Their
martial abilities are fairly offensive, but their magic is mostly
defensive.

The
historical Benkei is probably the number one source of inspiration
for the sohei class, but also the actual warrior monks of Mt. Hiei
(and the Shi comics I read back in the 90's inspired by those
historical monks) and the Ikko-Ikki sects of religious fanatics who
fielded armies during Japan's Warring States period.

Mahotsukai

Mahotsukai literally means “magic user” so it's an appropriate
name for the spell casting class in the game. It has that nice old
school resonance. In Japanese, “mahotsukai” is used for fictional
wizards and magicians like The Wizard of Oz. The mahotsukai gets
three profiles.

I didn’t want to
replicate the old school cleric/MU dichotomy exactly, so the three
profiles have some unusual or at least different features. Each is
pulled from history and/or source media. Like many cultures, the
Japanese connect magic and religion so all three have a religious
connotation, but none are quite like the D&D Cleric class. All
have spell use as their primary function, but none is a magical
scholar like the D&D MU.

1. Onmyoji
(exorcist) are historical. The name means Yin-Yang Master and they
got their ideas from Chinese esoteric Taoism. They were astrologers
and astronomers, in charge of creating calendars for the emperor.
They also used Feng Shui geomancy to protect the emperor from evil
spirits. Abe-no-Seimei is the most famous onmyoji, and there are lots
of legends and stories about him. The Onmyoji movies I reference are
about him.

In the game,
onmyoji are exorcists and demon hunters. They are better at combat,
at least against spirit creatures, than the soryo and yamabushi. In
that way they are like the Cleric, but their spell list is a bit more
combat-oriented like the MU.

2. Soryo(priest)
simply means priest, and for this profile I tried to keep it generic
enough that it could cover Buddhist-types as well as Shinto-types, or
even foreign religious missionaries (if playing a pseudo-historical
game). They are the worst combatants (so in a way like the MU), but
their spells are for healing, protection, and interaction, so
somewhere between the traditional Cleric and the Bard. Soryo are the
“face” class of Chanbara. I didn't have any historical or
fictional characters in mind with this profile, it's more of an
archetype.

3. Yamabushi
(mountain ascetic) are historical, and also known as shugenja
(misspelled shukenja in 1E OA). In OA (1E) they are like clerics with
martial arts. 3E OA has them based on the L5R setting of Rokugan,
where they are court sorcerers. My take goes to the original
yamabushi of Japan. They (the real ones – and yes, they still
exist) believe that living in seclusion on mountain tops, exposed to
the elements, grants magic powers.

In Chanbara, this
means they have elemental affinities and magic. Legends connect them
to tengu, tanuki, and other yokai creatures. They are the quirky
hermit magicians of the setting. This makes them more like the
traditional D&D MU in abilities but they are part of a religious
group. They are the most “anime” of the three profiles.

Shinobi

Shinobi (spy) – I
spent a LOT of time considering whether to call the class shinobi or
ninja. They mean the same thing, after all. In the end I went with
shinobi because it's the more historical term and it's possible to
run a Shinobi class character as something other than the modern
concept of the ninja. Especially but not exclusively with the
Taijutsuka (martial artist) profile.

And I went with spy
for the English translation because that's what they were – spies,
saboteurs and guerrilla fighters. Of course, in a game drawing
inspiration from cinema, other games and comics as well as history
and legend, there are options for REAL ULTIMATE POWER (remember that
dumb old website?) badass martial artists, assassins, and flying
through the air wailing on guitars decapitate you for looking types.
Well, maybe not that last one. Shinobi have four profiles.

1. Kagemusha (shadow
warrior) are the profile for magical shinobi. I borrowed the name
from the Kurosawa film, which has nothing to do with ninja, and
instead is about the death of Takeda Shingen, where he ordered his
men to impersonate him after he died to win the battle they were
engaged in. Inspiration for the profile comes from the character
Dogen in the movies Castle of Owls/Owl’s Castle, pretty much
everyone in the anime Ninja Scroll, and what little I know of shows
like Naruto. The OA ninja abilities to walk on water or walk through
walls are here, and they (like the Sohei profile for Bushi) have the
option to cast some spells.

2. Ninja (secret
agent) is the next profile, and rely on gear to supplement their
espionage abilities, and have a few special abilities to have the
right tool for the job even if the player didn’t plan for that
contingency. The Tenchu games for Playstation 1 and 2 were big
inspirations for this profile, as were the Iga ninja protagonists of
Owl’s Castle. Classic Batman Cartoons where he always has just the
right tool on his utility belt may have been an unconscious
inspiration as well.

3. Taijutsuka
(martial artist) are obviously martial artist ninja, and are a lot
like the monk in D&D. They are more combat and acrobatics
oriented, although they can still sneak around. The legendary
Saru-tobi Sasuke (Flying Monkey Sasuke) is one inspiration for this
profile. Yes, the athletics competition TV show is named for the
legendary ninja. The main characters in the movie Red Shadow: Akakage
would probably be Taijutsuka profile, if not Ninja profile. In my
play test game, Dean used the Shinobi/Taijutsuka to play a wandering
monk rather than a ninja, and it worked well.

4. Finally, the
Uragata (infiltrator) is closest to the historical shinobi/ninja.
They are masters of disguise and deception. Rather than sneak around
in black pajamas, they will pretend to be workers, entertainers,
clergy, or soldiers to hide in plain sight and spy on enemies. I got
inspiration from the movie Owl’s Castle for these shinobi, as well
as historical accounts.

I've got a vague idea of a game like Pugmire or Redwall, where all the characters are anthropomorphic animals each representing a different social class, since Goryeo/Joseon Korea was very socially stratified. But I can't figure out how that would fit on a basically D&D chassis, or if it should be a different type of game.